When did smooth jazz start?

It started with the guys that took out some of the chromatics, encircling, and non chordal on the downbeat notes. Chet Baker maybe? Nah, probably this.

 

Whenever the composition intent was to make the music accessible to people who were already-predisposed to not like the current state of the artform, but still accept the music as "Jazz". So, that would have been whatever intent would have been meant not for showing how a listener could be transported to the musicians' world, but how the musician could be motivated to anticipate the listeners' needs, and start from that position.

In radio, this term would have been synomymous with, "consulting", in which the radio station wasn't poised to be the best radio station they could be, rather, satisfy the expectations of the most people possible to isolate as a demographic target, as to what the best radio station could be, in their judgement.

Oddly-enough, it was the "New Age" era that brought us what could be calleed, the "all-saxophone format", before there was anything close to a style of programming designated as, "Smooth Jazz".

 

I think we have some VERY differing opinions on what constitutes smooth jazz.

 

Has nothing to do with jazz, everything to do with being called "smooth". See, the "smooth" designation can attract a type of radio listener who can use the station in his or her life..."jazz" on the other hand, is better utilized to modify one's life in order to experience (and accept) the unexpected and genre-breaking improvisation and dissonant viewpoints synomymous with the tenets of the music.

In radio, it's not about "music", it's all about "useage": how the music you choose, fits the listeners' life and needs, not how the programming forces the listener to think differently about the experience.

 

It started with someone who wanted to start a radio station that specialized in "smooth jazz".
I don't know but I just checked Webster and the only way I can apply music to that definition is possibly the melodic content. Flatter melodies? I give up.

 

You got it right and it only took one sentence.

 

Yeah but...the rest after that was all jamming.

 

More likely, it started with a radio company who had been able to isolate an urban audience in larger markets, that could be marketed to successfully as a "lifestyle" product, and managed to connect with this audience by using sponsorship partnerships to fund and propel event-oriented opportunites (see, "cruises", "festivals", and "wine tasting"). This is most likely best illustrated as comparing New Age stations such as "The Wave" in Los Angeles, with "The Wave" in Chicago.

While the New Age format itself was losing steam within the record industry, mostly due to inability to get larger audiences interested in this strange, accessible music (it instead merely opened existing listeners to fragmenting preferences, without growing its' base), there was still this need to create a musical isolation of "lifestyle-oriented" programming that appealed to the well-heeled buying demographic. Whereas most successful radio formats had defined its' listeners by age demographic, they hadn't had this sort of success since "Beautiful Music" lost its' reach across the country - and into the smaller markets) in the '70s.

So the industry took its' cue from Urban radio, and the steadily-growing influence of "Quiet Storm"-niche programming that neatly separated (and elevated) itself above the tougher edges of rap and hip-hop, and the Urban communities' assocaition with the gospel and political niches within their local stations.

Withoug trying to put too fine a point on it...Radio needed a place to sell the Cadillacs. And they found it in a new distillation of a variety of music that could be called something identifiable with the traditional heritage of the demographic, without utilizing the harder edges of the music of culture, that scared the more affluent listeners away. And so, "New Age" was re-christened "Smooth Jazz" by removing the spacey, whooshy, experimental character, and grooming artists for more accessible qualities.

So, while you had adult contemporary stations defining themselves like pop, only "without the rap and heavy metal", or, "without the sleepy elevator music"...now you had, "still jazz...without all the dashikis and incense...." sort of positioning.

And so now...time to sell some jewelry, luxury vehicles, wine and cruises!

 

Excellent.
Yep. That is typically how these "genres" arise.
Did I actually read that some here think that they can define "Smooth Jazz" using some technical musical terms?

 

Those two, combined with Grover Washington Jr would be where I would probably define the beginning.

But frankly Smooth Jazz to me has always seemed like a much more accessible offshoot of Fusion Jazz.

 

So I guess it's smooth jazz when it sounds like Celine Dion could start singing at any moment.

 

Or Pat Boone.

 

Indeed, and a lot of the smooth jazz I've heard (for example on the Stingray Smooth Jazz station) sounds like bad, imitation instrumental Steely Dan music to me...Becker and Fagen have something to answer for there, I think

 

I'm sure that must be the case too, but personally I've never come across a single friend or acquaintance whose route into jazz was smooth jazz,. There again, the kind of people I've hung out with may or may not represent the majority, although they have tended to be very much into music.

 

Genre as marketing platform. I like it!

 

Are we talking smooth or cool jazz? Calling Miles "smooth jazz" (even if speaking in the most loose of terms about strictly one individual recording or album) I feel is totally inaccurate. I wouldn't flag Chet Baker as smooth jazz either. Yes, he sang some "smooth sounding" ballads and some of his standards used lush commercial arrangements but regardless, "tracing" smooth jazz to Chet even at the most superficial of levels just is not correct. Additionally, Bill Evans? I never ever have seen those terms used w/ Bill Evans or Brubeck. I think what we may be dealing w/ is a matter of improper usage of genre labeling or just misunderstanding certain tracks here and there. When I hear the term smooth jazz I (as most Jazz lovers do) think of contemporary pop garbage -- a blend of standard pop and instrumental music that happens to feature a sax or a trumpet or guitar as the lead instrument in a "jazzy" fashion. As such it is labeled "smooth jazz" when in reality it is just really bad background instrumental muzak and and that's it. For example, yes you guessed who: Kenny G is smooth jazz! IMO calling anything recorded/played by masters like Chet, Brubeck, Evans, Coltrane, Miles, etc etc "smooth jazz" or trying to connect dots no matter how superficial is simply incorrect and misuse of terminology. Describing a certain song via usage of adjectives like "smooth" is obviously completely different. The only similarity between "smooth" jazz and "real" jazz is they may perform the same standards and play the same instruments and that is it. I don't believe there is any real connection between the two at all. It's like comparing "The Beatles" with "The Backstreet Boys" -- it does not add up. Apologies for waffling on..

 

If you are using "smooth" as a descriptor, then "smooth jazz" has existed as long as jazz had. I think some of the participants in this thread don't seem to understand that smooth jazz is a distinct sub-genre. Any jazz that strikes them as "smooth" is being described as "smooth jazz."

 

I'm surprised there has never been a SNL (or some other comedy show) sketch called, "Ken Burns' "Smooth Jazz""!

 

Exactly. That's what I was thinking/hoping was the case in my confusion Miles' recording of <insert song> had a smooth vibe.." not "in fact, miles recorded <insert song> and it was definitely in the area of smooth jazz."

 

Conversely, I have met people who would say that they love jazz, but have only ever heard the smooth type...

 

Hi People,

I don't really have much to add to the discussion other than a curious anecdote.

In the early '80s, not long after the popularity of the likes of George Benson & David Sanborn, et al., but before the likes of Kenny G, radio executives were experimenting with the smooth jazz format under its early moniker of "Jazzz"! Yes, early adopters were calling the music & the radio format "Jazzz" with a triple-Z. This term lasted only about a half of a year, and it was pre-internet, therefore virtually nobody remembers or refers to the term anymore.

Any older radio execs out there have anything else to share on this??

Andy

 

That's interesting, and hints at the fact they were actively doing market research on this style before deciding on "smooth."

 

Almost 100%
I'm 34 years and no one my age (much less younger) unless they are a musician or hardcore music lover has any clue what jazz is all about. It's stereotyped to the point that they imagine either some cheesy Laurence Welk band or Kenny G. And thats where their interest begins and ends, sadly.

 

Once or twice I've had people see me carrying a CD by John Coltrane or someone similar and say, "you like jazz? I love [insert smooth jazz musician here]..!"

 

Exactly, which is what I was sort of saying above that gregorya was replying to.